Unwanted Programs:

[magineer02]

I have a

Dell XPS 8500, with Windows 7 Professional,
SP1,with Spywareblaster,Avast,Windows firewall.
Firefox browser/Firefox Thunderbird
(1) TB HD
Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-33-3770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz 3.40 GHz
Ram 12.0 GB
System type : 64-bit operating system

When trying to update my software via Avast
software updater I was once again infected
with malware (PUP Optional). I should have
known better given that I had just finished
cleaning my system of malware. It was totally
my fault.

I did a full scan with Malwarebytes and found
(40) objects detected which I deleted than ran
another full scan which came up clean.

In any case, it dumped half a dozen programs in
a matter of seconds and I unistalled them as fast
as I could. Some of the programs were My PC Backup
Weather Alerts, DMuninstaller and McAfee.

There are a couple other programs I'm not certain
of and was wondering if you could tell me if they
are ok? They are 7-Zip and File Assocation Manager.
I also have Windows Defender which some other program m
must have installed. Since I already have Avast
shouldn't I uninstall this as well so there will be
no conflicts with Avast?

Thanks,
Robert

 

[philo]

There are a couple other programs I'm not certain
of and was wondering if you could tell me if they
are ok? They are 7-Zip and File Assocation Manager.
I also have Windows Defender which some other program m
must have installed. Since I already have Avast
shouldn't I uninstall this as well so there will be
no conflicts with Avast?

Thanks,
Robert

Windows Defender is part of Win7 so you can just leave it alone. In Win7
it's just a malware checker.

As to the other two programs, if you do not use them you can uninstall
them but 7-Zip could potentially be of use to you.

 

[magineer02]

I think I'll just uninstall the File
Association Manager.

Thanks,
Robert

 

[magineer02]

I uninstalled File Association Manager but left 7-Zip
at your suggestion.

I went into my 8200:

Dell Dimension 8200(Seagate Barracuda 7200 HD 160Gb)
with XP, SP3, with Spywareblaster, Avast, Malwarebytes and Windows
firewall.


and found (1) program I'm unsure of:

MSXML Parser

should I keep this or uninstall it? As
I understand it it helps build XML applications
whatever they are? I've never used this.


Thanks,
Robert

 

[philo]

MSXML Parser

I can't imagine that you would need that.

 

[Paul]

I uninstalled File Association Manager but left 7-Zip
at your suggestion.

I went into my 8200:

Dell Dimension 8200(Seagate Barracuda 7200 HD 160Gb)
with XP, SP3, with Spywareblaster, Avast, Malwarebytes and Windows
firewall.


and found (1) program I'm unsure of:

MSXML Parser

should I keep this or uninstall it? As
I understand it it helps build XML applications
whatever they are? I've never used this.


Thanks,
Robert

According to this, you get it from being updated to SP3.
It's also dragged in with certain packages.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSXML

I did a search on my machine and I can see bits and pieces
of 2,3,4,6 versions.

In terms of release structure, it seems to be eerily similar
to how .NET works. The difference being, I don't know what
tool you'd use, to tell what software on your computer needs
it. With .NET at least, you could scan the computer and get
some idea whether .NET is being used or not.

I'd just leave it.

As for what is XML. It's a text file. It is a container
for configuration information. Think of it as a "tiny
Registry" of its own. If you want to look at XML files,
you should be able to view them with Wordpad or Notepad,
as what is inside is just text.

Paul

 

[philo]

I can't imagine that you would need that.

Since Paul said to leave it...I'd take his advice.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Paul <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

In terms of release structure, it seems to be eerily similar
to how .NET works. The difference being, I don't know what
tool you'd use, to tell what software on your computer needs
it. With .NET at least, you could scan the computer and get
some idea whether .NET is being used or not.

[]
Are you saying there's a way of scanning your computer to see what uses
..net? If so, how do you do it, and does it show what _version_ of .net
is being used by what?

 

[BillW50]

In terms of release structure, it seems to be eerily similar
to how .NET works. The difference being, I don't know what
tool you'd use, to tell what software on your computer needs
it. With .NET at least, you could scan the computer and get
some idea whether .NET is being used or not.

[]
Are you saying there's a way of scanning your computer to see what uses
.net? If so, how do you do it, and does it show what _version_ of .net
is being used by what?[/QUOTE]

I seem to recall there is an utility out there that tells you what
programs need for what version of .NET.

 

[Paul]

In terms of release structure, it seems to be eerily similar
to how .NET works. The difference being, I don't know what
tool you'd use, to tell what software on your computer needs
it. With .NET at least, you could scan the computer and get
some idea whether .NET is being used or not.

[]
Are you saying there's a way of scanning your computer to see what uses
.net? If so, how do you do it, and does it show what _version_ of .net
is being used by what?[/QUOTE]

Another poster here, posted a script to do it.

Basically, the .NET info is in the file header. And
the CLR version is there too. The script (VBScript)
actually examined individual bytes in the file, to tell
what it was.

*******

This site has "CLRver", which does it for a single file.

http://www.devfish.net/downloads.aspx

http://www.devfish.net/.\downloads\files\clrver.zip

If I run this in a command prompt window, as a test...

clrver clrver.exe

I get

clrver.exe=v2.0.50727

which is .NET 2.0

If I run it on a non-dotNET program, such as file.exe, I get

file.exe=NotCLR

and then we know that one doesn't use .NET libraries.

With sufficient scripting skills, you could make a text
file containing the names of all .exe files, then put
"clrver" in front of each line, to do the check.

*******

This was a script from Mayayana. In Jan.2012 or so.
It's no longer available, and not in archive.org either.
(checkdotnet.vbs)

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/test/dotnetv.zip

HTH,
Paul

 

[magineer02]

I won't touch it then,

Thanks,
Robert

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

Are you saying there's a way of scanning your computer to see what
uses .net? If so, how do you do it, and does it show what _version_
of .net is being used by what?

Another poster here, posted a script to do it. []
This site has "CLRver", which does it for a single file. []
http://www.devfish.net/.\downloads\files\clrver.zip

Thanks for that.

If I run this in a command prompt window, as a test...

clrver clrver.exe

(Though not quite an example, reminds me of my favourite glossary entry
of all time, in a manual giving the syntax of HP BASIC [for 9000 series
computers, IIRR]:
recursive see recursive)

I get

clrver.exe=v2.0.50727

which is .NET 2.0

If I run it on a non-dotNET program, such as file.exe, I get

file.exe=NotCLR

and then we know that one doesn't use .NET libraries.

With sufficient scripting skills, you could make a text
file containing the names of all .exe files, then put
"clrver" in front of each line, to do the check.

Indeed! It's a long time since I've done any such, but I _might_ be able
to manage it - if I ever need the information.

*******

This was a script from Mayayana. In Jan.2012 or so.
It's no longer available, and not in archive.org either.
(checkdotnet.vbs)

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/test/dotnetv.zip

Pity. I liked Mayayana's stuff.

 

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote: []

Are you saying there's a way of scanning your computer to see what
uses .net? If so, how do you do it, and does it show what _version_
of .net is being used by what?

Another poster here, posted a script to do it. []
This site has "CLRver", which does it for a single file. []
http://www.devfish.net/.\downloads\files\clrver.zip

Thanks for that.

If I run this in a command prompt window, as a test...

clrver clrver.exe

(Though not quite an example, reminds me of my favourite glossary entry
of all time, in a manual giving the syntax of HP BASIC [for 9000 series
computers, IIRR]:
recursive see recursive)

I get

clrver.exe=v2.0.50727

which is .NET 2.0

If I run it on a non-dotNET program, such as file.exe, I get

file.exe=NotCLR

and then we know that one doesn't use .NET libraries.

With sufficient scripting skills, you could make a text
file containing the names of all .exe files, then put
"clrver" in front of each line, to do the check.

Indeed! It's a long time since I've done any such, but I _might_ be able
to manage it - if I ever need the information.

*******

This was a script from Mayayana. In Jan.2012 or so.
It's no longer available, and not in archive.org either.
(checkdotnet.vbs)

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/test/dotnetv.zip

Pity. I liked Mayayana's stuff.

HTH,
Paul

I'm not very good at this stuff, but this is a copy of
"listdir3.vbs" in my scripting folder... It has no command
line parameters (I don't know how to do that), it has no
error handling, and this script will die if it hits
"Access Denied" stuff. Still, it's to illustrate how
easy it is to recursively descend into a file system.
Most of this is just copied from an example on the web

' // *************** ListDir3 ****************

Dim objFSO

topDir = "E:\"
set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

' Create text file to output test data
Set OutputFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("ScriptOutput.txt", True)

Set objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(topDir)
Set colFiles = objFolder.Files
Set colFolders = objFolder.SubFolders

For Each objFile in colFiles
OutputFile.write(objFile.Path)
OutputFile.write("\")
OutputFile.write(objFile.Name)
OutputFile.write(" ")
Outputfile.writeLine(objFile.size)
Next

For Each objSubFolder In colFolders
ScanSubFolders(objSubFolder)
Next

' Close text file
OutputFile.Close


Sub scanSubFolders(objFolder)

Set colFiles = objFolder.Files
Set colFolders = objFolder.SubFolders

For Each objFile in colFiles
OutputFile.write(objFile.Path)
OutputFile.write("\")
OutputFile.write(objFile.Name)
OutputFile.write(" ")
Outputfile.writeLine(objFile.size)
Next

For Each objSubFolder In colFolders
ScanSubFolders(objSubFolder)
Next

End Sub

' // *************** End ListDir3 ****************

I store that as listdir3.vbs. Then open command prompt,
cd to the folder holding the executable, and enter
"listdir3" as the program to execute. It'll likely
die before it finishes. Look for the text file
ScriptOutput.txt, now sitting in the same folder.

I consider any programming task as "easy", if
it takes 60 lines of code or less Mainly,
because I probably couldn't successfully write
anything bigger than that.

HTH,
Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Paul <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

I'm not very good at this stuff, but this is a copy of
"listdir3.vbs" in my scripting folder... It has no command
line parameters (I don't know how to do that), it has no

(For batch file scripting, you use things like %1, I think; I've never
done any of this sort of thing [is this Javascript?].)

error handling, and this script will die if it hits
"Access Denied" stuff. Still, it's to illustrate how
easy it is to recursively descend into a file system.
Most of this is just copied from an example on the web

Thanks for it!
[]

I consider any programming task as "easy", if
it takes 60 lines of code or less Mainly,
because I probably couldn't successfully write
anything bigger than that.

HTH,
Paul

I think I'd have a similar attitude! Except that I think it might be
more like 30 lines (excluding comments) now.

 

[magineer02]

I store that as listdir3.vbs. Then open command prompt,
cd to the folder holding the executable, and enter
"listdir3" as the program to execute. It'll likely
die before it finishes. Look for the text file
ScriptOutput.txt, now sitting in the same folder.

How do you direct the command prompt to the executable?
Will using listdir3.vbs remove the problem I'm having
with the malware by typing it on the command prompt
and nothing else?

Thanks,
Robert

 

[Paul]

I store that as listdir3.vbs. Then open command prompt,
cd to the folder holding the executable, and enter
"listdir3" as the program to execute. It'll likely
die before it finishes. Look for the text file
ScriptOutput.txt, now sitting in the same folder.

How do you direct the command prompt to the executable?
Will using listdir3.vbs remove the problem I'm having
with the malware by typing it on the command prompt
and nothing else?

Thanks,
Robert

I was demonstrating how to write a copy of "dir" effectively.
VBS is some kind of scripting language. The source code
I showed, was for a script to do something similar to "dir".

Using "dir" is not going to fix your problem.

I was merely demonstrating how easy it is to code up
some recursive descent to list the file contents of a partition.

I'm not a programmer, and I like to copy stuff off the web
I hope you understand.

Paul